Category Archives: Movies

Movies

A couple of fun movie lists…

…found in the always amusing Cracked.com.

First up, 26 Huge Editing Errors You Didn’t Notice In Famous Movies:

http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_917_26-huge-editing-errors-you-didnt-notice-in-famous-movies/

The #2 goof, taken from the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever (Sean Connery’s last “official” James Bond outing, assuming one doesn’t consider Never Say Never Again a “real” Bond film), is one of my favorites.  Cracked presents images of the scene in question with the explanation of the goof:

But the best way to see and enjoy this goof is by looking at the entire sequence:

If you’re impatient for the good stuff, fast forward to the 2:29 mark.  James Bond, in the Moon Rover, goes down a hill and one of the cars pursuing him flips over.  However, as it flips and starting at the 2:34 point, you see a wheel rolling into the scene from the left…clearly it is one of the Moon Rover’s wheels that has come off!

Of course, when next we see the Moon Rover it has all its wheels.  So why is this goof still in the film?  I suspect the producers of Diamonds Are Forever didn’t want to waste the time and money (not to mention getting another vehicle to smash) duplicating this stunt and went with the scene as it stood.  They probably hoped the scene went by quickly enough that only if you were paying close attention you’d notice the extra wheel bouncing around amid the mayhem of the flipping car.

Once you do notice it, however, its hard not to un-notice it! 😉

Next up are 5 Famously Dumb Movies (in reality, 4 movies and one TV show) With Mind Blowing Hidden Meanings:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-famously-dumb-movies-with-mind-blowing-hidden-meanings/

I particularly liked what they said about the movie Dredd.  While many people liked the film, I found the movie decent but…uncomfortable.  When I reviewed it a while back, I noted the Judge Dredd comics I was familiar with were the originals (roughly up to the Apocalypse War) and they featured plenty of humor along with the violence.

For better or worse, one thing the Dredd film lacks is much humor!

However, the insight into the film offered in the above article is interesting.  It re-frames the film in my mind and, I have to admit, allows me to see it in a new light.

As I said, interesting!

Movies

Now this is clever!

If you’ve ever had the fortune/misfortune of creating your own poster or book or music “cover”, you know that it can be both exhilarating and frustrating.  You want to create something that catches the eye instantly and communicates as much as possible while hopefully giving audiences a healthy curiosity/interest in what you’re selling.

So with that in mind, here are 9 minimalist movie posters, just about all of which I think are clever as hell:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2014/06/09/minimalist-movie-posters-for-jaws-bonnie-clyde-psycho-rear-window-and-more.html

Choosing a favorite among the ones presented is really, really hard.  But if pressed, my choice would be the two Hitchcock films, with this one, a minimalist poster for Psycho, taking the ultimate prize:

140606_EYE_Psycho

If you like this, then check out the others, they’re well worth it.

Movies

The World’s End (2013) a (mildly) belated review

Movie “coincidences” are a curious thing.  I’m referring here to the times when very similarly themed movies are released at roughly the same time.

Sometimes such coincidences are anything but.  A long while back, after the tremendous success of both The Terminator and Aliens, it was announced that director James Cameron’s next project was to be set in an underwater facility.  Rival movie studios, hoping to steal Mr. Cameron’s lightning (and box office gold), set about making their own films set in underwater facilities.  Thus it was that in the year 1989 Mr. Cameron’s The Abyss was released at roughly the same time as both Leviathan and DeepStar Six.  The Abyss would turn out to be completely unlike Mr. Cameron’s previous white knuckle thrillers but Leviathan and DeepStar Six were essentially what the studios thought Mr. Cameron was up to: A variation of Alien/Aliens set in an underwater facility.

While this was a case where the studios were emulating (or, to not be quite so polite: ripping off) each other, there have been other occasions where “coincidental creativity” has appeared.  One has to look no further than the 2013 release of the comedies The World’s End and the somewhat similarly themed (and very similarly titled) This is the End.

This is the End (you can read my full review here) was a film featuring comedy actors playing exaggerated/cartoon versions of themselves while the Biblical Apocalypse rains down on Earth.  For better or worse, much of the humor felt improvised and the plot was rather simple.  On the other hand, The World’s End feels like a more thoroughly thought out story which is just as likely to be bittersweet as it is humorous.

The World’s End, for those who don’t know, is the third of the so-called “Cornetto Trilogy”.  The other two films in the trilogy, all of which feature director/co-writer Edgar Wright and stars/co-writers Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, were the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead and the “Dirty Harry” meets Agatha Christie comedy Hot Fuzz.

Thus, the two previous Cornetto films take on popular movie genres and create their own humorous riff on them.  So, for The World’s End, what movie/genre did the trio decide to focus on?

Try Invasion of the Body Snatchers married with Peter Pan and a hint of The Big Chill.

The story goes like this: Back in the 1990’s a group of High School friends got together for one big -and they thought last- night of debauchery before graduating and heading off to “real” life.  They intended to visit (and drink at!) the twelve bars in the small town they all lived in, progressively getting wasted in “epic” fashion.

However, they didn’t quite make it to the last of the twelve bars, the titular The World’s End, so their epic journey ended in failure.

In the present, this group of friends have grown and have careers and family.  But their one-time leader, Gary King (Simon Pegg), appears to have never grown up.  When first seen, we find he’s in some kind of group therapy and talks about that magical night twenty some odd years before and laments that the group never quite finished their adventure.  One of his fellow therapy partners asks if he thinks about doing this again, to finish what he started, and so begins the adventure…

In the course of the next few minutes of screen time, we’re introduced to the now-aging gang via Gary.  He meets up with each of them individually and does what he can (usually involving sweet talk and/or white lies and flim-flammery) to convince them to go back to their home town and finish their bar hopping adventure.  In the end, Gary succeeds in getting everyone together and they start their day of bar hopping…

…until things get decidedly strange.

As I noted above, this film owes its central plot to Invasion of the Body Snatchers just as previous Cornetto films owed their plots to other films/genres.  It is this element which becomes the movie’s main focus, though there are other additions to the mix.

The comic elements are fun, though the film is just as often rather sad.  The fact of the matter is that Gary is, for the most part, a pathetic figure.  He is a warning to everyone of the dangers of living in the past and refusing to accept one’s present.  Indeed, as the movie progresses, his friends are more and more turned off by him and are about to leave him to his windmills and return to their adult lives when the strange stuff begins.

Given how “normal” the first third or so of the film was, the arrival of the strange stuff creates a rather jarring turn, and I suspect the film would have been a little better if they made the transition more subtly than they did here.

Still, this was their choice and the final parts of the film involve the characters still navigating their way through the bars while dealing with, potentially, the end of the world.

The World’s End is an amusing enough film that entertained me through its runtime without necessarily knocking my socks off.  While it didn’t wear out its welcome like This Is The End, the mix and mash use of different genres didn’t work quite as well here as they did in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, at least for me.

Regardless, the film was far more enjoyable -again, to me- than the somewhat similar Seth Rogan vehicle.  If you’re already a fan of the Cornetto films, this is a no-brainer.  Others not quite as familiar with the Wright/Pegg/Frost collaborations may take a little more time to warm up to their particular brand of humor.

Movies

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) a (very) belated review

I’m a sucker for “deleted” scenes from films as well as movies that were trimmed down from the director’s vision and subsequently “restored”.

Perhaps the most famous of this later bunch -and easily one of my all time favorite films- is the 1927 sci-fi classic Metropolis.  Because of the high costs associated with the production and its too long run time which lead to fears the film would not recoup its expenses, Metropolis was cut down in length shortly after its premiere and the cut scenes were thought lost forever for many, many years.  That is, until a relatively complete print was miraculously found in South America.  The “restored” version, which still doesn’t include a couple of too far damaged scenes, is an incredible experience despite the blurriness of the reinserted lost scenes, especially if all you’ve ever experienced of the film is the “cut” version.

But restoration doesn’t always mean a superior product from the one released theatrically.  As much as I loved Apocalypse Now and as much as I was intrigued with seeing Apocalypse Now Redux, director Francis Ford Coppola’s extended version of the film, that version of the film wound up being an incredible disappointment.  The extra sequences proved, at least to me, forgettable and wisely trimmed from the film.  A good example is checking out the Redux version of the full Robert Duvall sequence and comparing it to the theatrical one.  In the theatrical version, those scenes are among the best of the film, concluding on a bizarre, wistful Duvall speech (“One day, this war is going to end.”).  In the Redux version, the scene goes on and on, bringing us an unnecessary -and silly- bit involving the boys stealing Duvall’s surfboard.  Similarly, The Warriors was, again IMHO, a great film in its theatrical form and a mess -again IMHO- in its expanded director’s cut.

Regardless, my interest in seeing “restored” versions of films remains very high and the latest example of just such a creature is the Criterion company’s release of the 1963 comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (I’ll refer to it as IAMW from now on).

The theatrical cut of the film runs 154 minutes but most fans of the feature know there was a 202 minute pre-release version that was subsequently trimmed and no longer exists.  Criterion nonetheless searched long and hard and found as many of the lost elements as they could and the restored version presented on their BluRay runs a lengthy 197 minutes.

Does this version add to the film like Metropolis or subtract like Apocalypse Now Redux and The Warriors?

The answer is a little tricky, but ultimately my feeling is the “restored” version of the film is the superior product…with a mild asterisk.

Why the asterisk?  To begin, IAMW was already a very time consuming film experience and those who didn’t “get” the joke were bound to think negatively about the film in its shorter version and would no doubt feel even less for the longer version.  I suspect younger viewers, too, might find less in the film because it features a cast that, frankly, the younger set may not recognize at all.  At the time of its creation in 1963, IAMW featured just about every popular comedic actor there was out there.  The all star cast was crammed into a race to the finish type film, where the various groups of people hunt for a buried treasure while greed gets the best of them.

Though I’ll admit to not being a huge fan of some of the principle actors (Milton Berle and Sid Ceasar, just to name two, were a little before my time), I nonetheless got a kick out of seeing all the various faces parade before me.  And some of the set pieces, in particular the wayward airplane sequences, were outright hilarious and an obvious inspiration to things that were to come (I’m looking at you, Airplane!).

The restored sequences reinserted into IAMW are at times pretty ragged.  Some of them have the dialogue cut off at the last second.  But worse are other scenes, most notably one featuring silent comedy legend Buster Keaton, which only feature the dialogue recording and were presented, in lieu of the actual film, with stills.  Unlike Apocalypse Now Redux, I felt most of the “restored” scenes were, if not always vital, at the very least added to the story and, in certain cases, filled in a few of the story’s gaps.  Returning to the lost Buster Keaton scene, now I understand where Capt. Culpepper (Spencer Tracy) was going toward the end of the film.  As it was in the theatrical cut, he heads to Buster Keaton’s place but I was never exactly sure why.

That’s not to say all the restored bits are all long and involved.  Many of them amount to a nothing more than a few seconds of extended dialogue or film that are interesting enough but could have been lost without hurting the feature all that much.

Still, my daughter, who usually doesn’t care all that much for older films, nonetheless wound up watching the restored version with me from a little after the beginning to its end and enjoyed the feature.  Given that the only actors she recognized were The Three Stooges in their couple of seconds long cameo, it didn’t detract from her enjoyment of the madness before her.

In the end, I recommend the restored version of IAMW.  While the film is long and therefore requires a considerable investment on the part of viewers, it is an at times hilarious bit of madness, a comedy on a grand scale the likes of which hasn’t been made any time recently.

Check it out.  If you’re into this kind of comedy, you’ll have a good time.

Movies

John Carter sequel…?

No, its not going to happen (Disney simply lost waaay too much money on the first film to even think about doing a second), but Taylor Kitsch, the star of the mega-bomb offered a couple of brief and interesting comments about the film, and how the script to the sequel was, in his opinion, very good:

http://io9.com/the-john-carter-sequel-were-never-getting-wouldve-been-1582787443

I have to admit to being curious about the continued interest people (myself included!) have in John Carter, now two years removed from its infamous release and flop.

I’m fascinated by the creative personalities involved, the money spent, and the sense of doom that permeated the entire project seemingly at every stage of its creation.  Having seen it after its release, I stand by the closing lines of my (mildly belated) review of the film:

(John Carter) is a pleasant enough time killer with some good humor and some impressive set pieces but, and its a very BIG “but”, given the film’s costs, it could and should have been so much more.

While John Carter may well have been a film that didn’t deserve the incredible negativity it received prior to -and during- its release, in the end the movie was little more than slightly above average.  Yes, it was a very handsome looking action film and yes, the effects were quite impressive.  But on the negative side, the two leads shared very little onscreen chemistry (sexual or otherwise) and the villains and their motivations were never all that well defined.

Yes, author Edgar Rice Burroughs essentially created many of what are now sci-fi adventure tropes with his Mars series and it is sad when people look at some of the goings on in John Carter and complain the movie “ripped off” elements from other, more popular, movies (when the reality is quite the opposite!), but the reality remains what I said above.

And yet…if the film hadn’t been such a bust, I have to admit being curious to see a potential sequel.  For all its faults, John Carter was probably as close to Burrough’s vision as you’re likely to find.

Ah well, what could have been.

Movies

Spione (1928) a (ridiculously) belated review

One of my all time favorite films is the Fritz Lang directed, Thea Von Harbou written 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis.  This film was incredibly influential in so many ways, including serving as a visual inspiration to designs in Star Wars and Blade Runner.

Incredibly, director Lang and von Harbou would follow that very influential film with a film that is THE great-grand daddy of all spy films, Spione (aka Spies).  If you want to see what is essentially a James Bond film made over thirty years before the release of Dr. No, look no further, for Spione features such by now familiar spy tropes as…a dashing, handsome hero known by his number rather than name (in this case, 326 versus 007), a villainous head of a vast criminal enterprise confined to a wheelchair, seductive femme fatales -one of which falls for our hero!-, world peril, secret documents, hidden listening devices, disappearing ink, globe trotting (to a degree) adventure, an extended chase scene, and, of course, danger danger danger!

Having said that, those looking forward to a proto-James Bond film should also realize this is a very old film and there will be things about it modern audiences will no doubt have trouble understanding and/or appreciating.  The acting, for example, is at times quite overwrought.  This is not an uncommon element in silent films, as emotions had to be conveyed without actual dialogue.

The story itself features a McGuffin at the central of its plot, and this McGuffin, unfortunately, winds up being not as well thought out as it could have been.  Basically, the Japanese and the Germans are working on some kind of treaty and the movie’s villain wants to get his hands on the signed paper before it leaves Germany, thus provoking war…or something.  The movie gives the impression there is only one copy of this treaty heading out, and for a treaty the movie conveys as being so important, that seems rather absurd.  You would think multiple copies of this treaty would exist and the fellows signing it would keep in touch with their respective superiors via some other form of communication instead of relying on getting that one copy of the treaty to their homeland safely.

Still, if you can look past these elements and appreciate the film as the time capsule it is, you will have plenty to admire.  Again, the most astounding things present in this film are the James Bondian elements.  One comes away from this wondering just how familiar author and creator of James Bond Ian Fleming and the makers of the Bond films were with Spione.

But they weren’t the only ones!

Remember this scene, from Blade Runner?

Starting from roughly the 1:38 mark, where Sebastian “finds” Pris, this scene is strikingly similar to one in Spione, where during a rainstorm the sympathetic Japanese agent Masimoto (who is in charge of the treaty our villain wants to get his hands on) “finds” a soaking woman at a doorway who he feels sympathy for and, like Sebastian, takes in…only to be betrayed by her later on.

So, if you’re in the mood for a prototypical James Bond film, give Spione a whirl.  While parts of it may be dated and the story may be a little absurd, you will nonetheless be astonished by how many elements of this film found their way to modern spy features.

Highly recommended.

Movies

Agency (1980) a (ridiculously) belated review

So I was wandering around Costco the other day and, in looking over the depressingly smaller and smaller DVD/BluRay section, I find this…

100 “Awesomely” Cheesy Movies?  I turn the box around and take a closer look at its contents.  I’m somewhat leery -yet fascinated by- these mega movie collections.  True, the quality of the films presented tend to be…less…both in terms of the movie’s actual transfer and, for the most part, the movies themselves.

Still, I give those contents a look and, at $15.99 for the collection, figured even if I did buy it without recognizing any of the films, I was bound to find something interesting.  As it turned out, I recognized several of the films in this grouping, which included for the most part forgotten films from the 1970’s and 80’s.

Foremost on the list was Agency, a 1980 film featuring one of my favorite actors of all time (and in the “bad guy” role, natch!), Robert Mitchum.  Even more curious, the film starred the Six Million Dollar Man himself, Lee Majors!  (A bit of trivia: Lee Majors and Robert Mitchum would appear in the 1988 Bill Murray film Scrooged, though they did not share any screen time together.  Lee Major’s cameo appearance is a hoot and I present it below, though the sound quality of the clip is quite bad).

I bought the collection, headed home, put the disc featuring Agency into my DVD player and…nothing.  The screen was a blank.  I ejected the DVD and tried again.  Same result.  A third time.  Nothing.

I tried another, different disc from the collection, worried that perhaps the entire collection was unplayable on my DVD system.  It played fine.  And by fine I mean the movie(s) played.  The images were grainy as hell and the sound was borderline abysmal, but I’ve endured worse.

Anyway, I took the Agency DVD to another player in another part of my house and gave it a try there.  For whatever reason, it worked there.

Whew.

Considering I bought this set mainly to see this one film, it would have been a shame that this one particular disc would prove defective!

Anyway, the film starts and, yes, the images remain consistent with what I saw on the other disk, that is to say pretty poor and the sound isn’t all that great.  Yet it was good enough to watch the film, even if it appears that at least in the first half a censor erased the swear words.  Curiously, in the later half of the film we hear Mr. Majors utter a few choice PG lines…perhaps the censor fell asleep after the first half of the film!?

Agency is a curious bird of a film, a thriller whose makers appeared squeamish about giving us too many thrills and a plot that, let’s face it, anyone in the audience would have figured out far ahead of the protagonist.

Lee Majors is Philip Morgan, a creative director at an advertising agency.  He has a girlfriend, Brenda Wilcox (played by the lovely Valerie Perrine, who for the most part is wasted in her role) and a neurotic co-worker and Jewish friend named Sam Goldstein (Saul Rubinek in one of his very early roles…weird to see him so young when you’re accustomed to seeing him in Warehouse 13!).

A new boss, Ted Quinn (Robert Mitchum, natch) has bought out the agency and strange things are afoot.  Goldstein tells his friend Morgan that many employees, many more than should, are quitting the agency.  This doesn’t bother Morgan as much as being told by Goldstein that Quinn has started a “secret” project without informing him.  Given that Morgan is the head of the creative division of this agency, it is understandable he feels like he’s being eased out of his job.

After meeting with Quinn, however, the new owner allays Morgan’s fears by being seemingly very upfront and telling him the only reason Morgan wasn’t given a head’s up is because the project just came into the agency and the company behind them wants to keep it hush-hush.  Morgan is gracefully allowed to oversee this no longer secret -to him anyway- project and all appears well…

…until Morgan is asked to take an overnight trip with Quinn for another company and Goldstein tries to dissuade him from going, telling him he’s “figured it out”.

I know, I know.  Scintillating stuff, right?

When Morgan returns from his trip, he can’t reach him friend and, after breaking into his apartment, finds Goldstein dead in the refrigerator.  It was at this point one would have thought the tension would increase.

One would be wrong.

As I mentioned before, the makers of the film seemed to be squeamish with the whole “tension” idea and when Morgan is subsequently in grave mortal danger viewers are given reason to think things aren’t quite as dangerous as they appear.  For instance, the two thugs meant to either kill him or his girl wind up appearing clownish at times.  Further, Lee Majors has a curiously mellow way of dealing with the danger presented, often lighten tension with farcical statements.  So, instead of ratcheting up the suspense as the movie hurls to its climax ala, say, The Parallax View or Seven Days in May or All The President’s Men (political thrillers all), the film’s climax gets watered down considerably.  Worse, Robert Mitchum, the main reason I wanted to see the film, is given very little in the end to do here.  His big reveal is interesting (if obvious) yet he never comes across as the heavy I expected, at least compared to his wonderful dark turn in the original 1962 version of Cape Fear.

In the end, I can’t recommend Agency to anyone other than a person like me, one who enjoys seeing obscure Robert Mitchum or Lee Majors films.  There is a reason, after all, this film is as obscure as it is…

If you remain curious to see the film, here it is in its entirety, courtesy of YouTube.  The copy presented there looks suspiciously like the one I saw!

Movies

Pacific Rim (2013) a (mildly) belated review

When i was a kid, our family moved to and lived in South America for a number of years.  There, the primary source of “kid’s” entertainment on television were a wide variety of Japanese TV shows.  Whether cartoon or live action, the predominate “boy” shows featured a wide assortment of robots battling other robots and heroes who piloted said vehicles.

By the time we left South America I was burned out by the whole thing.  I was surprised to find that when I arrived in the United States, the whole Japanese manga movement was only just beginning, so what was old hat to me was something new and fascinating to American audiences.

Years passed and today, the Japanese sci-fi market in all its various incarnations is pretty well known and, of course, extends well beyond the giant fighting robot genre.

Still, that’s the particular genre I’ve most remembered from my youth.  I believe the first Americanized version of this particular genre could be found in the low budget 1989 release Robot Jox.

Watching that trailer above, its interesting to see how as much as things change, they manage to stay the same.

Pacific Rim, director/co-writer Guillermo Del Toro’s love letter to this genre, is a perfectly good action/adventure film featuring giant robots and the monsters they fight.  The plot is very simple: A strange undersea rift has appeared and is spitting out giant sized monsters that, natch, attack the coastal cities of Earth.  Humanity unites to fight the menace and ultimately creates a squad of giant robots piloted by two people who are mentally “linked” together to do the job.  But the menace grows greater as stronger and more fearsome monsters appear, and a mystery develops regarding their origins…and purpose.

I had a perfectly good time watching Pacific Rim.  No, the film won’t earn awards for Shakespearean levels of acting or for the screenplay’s subtlety or depth.

This is nothing more and nothing less than a fun popcorn film.

Strangely, the film nonetheless managed to divide audiences quite a bit.  A friend of mine stated he tried to see the film a couple of times but could not get past the first twenty minutes.  Others have pointed a plot holes they felt critically wounded the movie’s story.

I dunno.

We are talking about a world where giant robots sucker punching giant monsters are a more effective way of dealing with said menaces versus nerve gas or missiles or nukes or any other form of projectiles.

In other words, if you’re willing to sit back and let the movie flow, I suspect you’ll have a good time.

For those looking for something more “logical”, then perhaps you should stick with action movies that have that…say, Skyfall or The Avengers?

Recommended.

Movies

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) a (right on time!) review

…well, right on time plus a couple of weeks…

Way, waaaay back in 1990 I went to the theaters to see Reversal of Fortune.  The movie, starring Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close, examined the real life attempts by lawyer Alan Dershowitz and his students to overturn the murder conviction of Klaus van Bulou, who had been convicted of attempting to murder his wife Sunny, a very wealthy New York socialite.

The film was great and Jeremy Irons delivered a creepy turn as van Bulou.  Further, it featured a terrific courtroom drama, something I normally find very intriguing.  And yet, immediately after seeing the film I knew I would probably never see it again and therefore not buy it when it reached the home video market.

In those younger, more naive times I lived in, I found these divergent feelings very odd.  How could I, on the one hand, enjoy a film as much as this one yet, on the other hand, know that as good as it was, there was little chance I would ever revisit it?

Which brings us to The Grand Budapest Hotel.  Directed and co-written by cult favorite Wes Anderson, the film is a whimsical comedy/mystery/action film regarding M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes, absolutely fantastic in the lead comedic role), an outwardly elegant and well spoken (but inwardly somewhat sleazy and foul mouthed) concierge at the aforementioned Hotel and Zero Moustafa, a lobby boy he takes under his wing.  The movie takes place at the outset of World War II, but deliberately blurs reality of these times to make the movie more of a live action cartoon, with at times very dreamy set pieces and characters.

In many ways the film resembles a live action version of the Tintin graphic novels of Herge (not the film version by Steven Spielberg, which while entertaining enough, never grasped the “spirit” of the works nor Herge’s love of culture).

I laughed long and hard at many of the jokes presented, particularly the running gag of M. Gustave’s oh-so-proper diction, which at the turn of a hat becomes foul mouthed cursing.  The romance between Zero Moustafa and Agatha (Saoirse Ronan) was also well handled and bittersweet, as well as the story, involving the possible murder of a wealthy socialite (shades of Reversal of Fortune!) and the coming war.

The movie also features a wealth of cameo appearances by familiar actors, from Harvey Keitel to Bill Murray to Tilda Swinton, etc. etc.  That, unfortunately, winds up being one of the film’s weaker links as these cameos, amusing as they were, often didn’t pay off quite as well as the filmmakers probably hoped.  While it was interesting to spot the various actors here and there, they are often no more than window dressing and some are given very little to do (Bill Murray’s few scenes, in particular, felt pointless).

Despite this, the film is a worthy watch, a more than solid effort that entertained me during its run.  Now, I have enjoyed some of Wes Anderson’s films, but not all of them.  I think he is a unique creator, a man whose works clearly stand out from others.  The Grand Budapest Hotel is one of his better overall efforts, in my opinion, yet I would caution those who are not fans of Mr. Anderson’s particular style to tread lightly.  For those who are fans, The Grand Budapest Hotel is a no-brainer, another elegant, well thought out piece of whimsy.

Yet as good as the film is, I can help but return to my opening comments.  The Grand Budapest Hotel, to me is very much like Reversal of Fortune in the sense that as much as I enjoyed it, I doubt I’ll revisit the film anytime soon (if at all).  Make of that what you will.

Still, and also like Reversal of Fortune, I heartily recommend giving the film a look.  Though it ultimately may not be my cup of tea to revisit, it most certainly was worth at least one visit.

Movies

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) a (right on time) review

By now, a mere week or so since Captain America: The Winter Soldier (CATWS from now on) was released, it has proven a mighty box-office hit and, for the most part, people really like, if not outright love, the film.

Count me in the previous category.

I very much enjoyed CATWS and have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.  The movie is a first rate production featuring, among other things, suspense, action, humor, and terrific special effects.  But it this added bonus makes it even more special:  The very clever casting of Robert Redford in a role that screams references to some of his previous films (most notably All The President’s Men and Three Days of the Condor) while simultaneously -and deviously- subverting fans of those older film’s expectations.  I’ll say no more…

…for now.

So, in brief: See the movie.  Unless you have no pulse, you should find it very enjoyable.  It is not perfect, but it is a solid, and easily one of the better, Marvel Universe films released to date.

SPOILERY REVIEW FOLLOWS!!!!

 

YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!!!!

 

Allow me to elaborate on the whole “it is not perfect” thing I mentioned above.

Yes, CATWS is a solid, very entertaining film.  It is also, unfortunately, a little bit like the latest James Bond film Skyfall (my review of it can be found here): A first rate production and an exciting film with a rather…how do I put it kindly?…troubled story.

Now, I don’t think CATWS’ story was quite as flawed as Skyfall’s.  Yet it does have its problems.  For example, the whole opening bit involving a ship taken over by pirates wound up being something else.

But what exactly?

There was a VERY IMPORTANT computer program -and personnel- on board the ship which figured into the rest of the story, but why in the world was this program there?  There is no explanation given, which makes you wonder all the more why it was there in the first place.  Later in the film we’re told that maybe Sgt. Fury -the man who sends in Captain America and his group to “rescue” the ship- actually had something to do with the piracy in the first place.

But…did he?

As a viewer I was never certain because it is the villain who states Fury was responsible for the piracy itself.  However, him being the villain, do we believe his words?  Was Fury just “lucky” the ship was assaulted and he then got his hands on this highly important material?

As should be evident, even as I write this I have no idea who was behind this opening piracy.

Which leads us to the next, most difficult aspect of the movie to swallow: That the SHIELD organization, Fury’s organization, was infiltrated many years before and is run by operatives of HYDRA, Marvel’s answer to James Bond’s S.P.E.C.T.E.R.

Because the movie rolls along so nicely, I was willing to let that one pass, but when you think about it, this idea is a really hard one to accept.  It would be akin to having the Nazi’s “secretly” infiltrate the U.S. Army during the waning days of WWII and “lay low” all this time while essentially doing their evil undercover.  If these evil people were so deeply infiltrated within SHIELD, why did they let the piracy thing happen?  If such an important program to them was on that ship, why let Captain America go there and rescue the passengers?

Evil organizations shouldn’t care too much about losing one or two people.  Couldn’t they have “accidentally” destroyed the ship and everyone on board and ended the possibility of their master plan being exposed once and for all?

Now, moving to the meat and potatoes of the film, actor Chris Evans is decent in the role of Captain America but little more.  While I’ve enjoyed him in other roles, as Captain America he’s rather bland and hard to relate to.  I’m sure others may disagree.  Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson fare better in their roles of the Black Widow and Sgt. Fury, respectively, and Anthony Mackie is fine in the role of the Falcon.

But its Robert Redford that really grabbed my attention.  I’ll be honest, when all was said and done his role was a cliche (He essentially played Cliff Robertson’s role from Three Days of the Condor).  Yet it was stunning to see the veteran actor in a “superhero” movie.  Even more intriguing is to play the “what if” game.  In his youth, I think Mr. Redford would have made a terrific Captain America.  He certainly has the right look for it!

Ah, what could have been.

In the end, I return to what I said before:  CATWS is worth your time.  I said above that it was one of the “better” Marvel Universe films I’ve seen.  Thinking about some of the others, I may have to revise my opinion.  It may be the best of the lot, at least so far, even with the flaws mentioned above.

Go see it.  You’ll enjoy it.